By Network Management, Network Security, Techblog

What is DNS?

Computers communicate with each other by numbers unlike humans who are accustomed to using names instead of numbers. In line with that, for us humans to communicate with computers through names instead of numbers such as IP addresses which are very difficult to remember, Domain Name System or most commonly known as DNS, will definitely make the work easier. DNS resolves domain names to IP addresses. For example, if you type in sav25.com, the DNS server will search into its database to find its matching IP address for that domain name and resolve it to the IP address. Your computer will then be able to communicate with the web server of sav25.com and retrieve the webpage. Basically, DNS is like a phonebook where you can just search for the name of the person you are trying to call, and your phone will just dial the mobile number saved into your friend’s name.

A secured DNS hosting service is a must because a simple problem can affect everything in your network. If you are thinking of becoming a DNS hosting provider, there are things you should take into consideration – backup and security.

Backup

What we mean for backups is that you should have multiple DNS servers to take over to assure continuous hosting services in case your primary server fails. The common configuration for this is having a primary and secondary server – the primary as the master server and the secondary as the slave. This is where the primary and secondary zone will be useful. The primary zone contains read/write copy of zone data and the changes can only be made on the primary zone.

Security

A DNS can perform domain blacklisting or DNS blacklisting for security purposes. You may perform blocking redundancy by using the blacklisting feature of DNS even with existing firewall. How does it work? An ISP can restrict users from using other DNS other than their provided DNS services by blocking all those outbound DNS requests using the DNS blacklisting feature of Simple DNS Plus. However, there is no assurance that your provided DNS cannot be bypassed by some techy users or clients, and that’s where a firewall, Clavister for example, will perform the blacklisting of outbound DNS requests by configuring its policies.